The Boiled Leather Audio Hour
Podcasts at least twice a month. Support us on Patreon!
Episodes
Today, we’re covering the first half of the history of the Democratic Republic of Germany - or East Germany, to its friends. From the earliest days of popular insurrection to the construction of the Berlin Wall and the twilight days of Ulbricht’s reign, we have you covered.
In our ongoing series on the best moments of the series, we take apart the Bridge of Dream sequence, which provides us with some unusualy challenges - we don’t really know where any of this leads, so this is more meta and speculative as usual.
Today, we’re looking at why the CDU could rule for 20 years in the early German republic. There’s a good combination of electoral shenanigans, foreign policy questions and old Nazis involved.
From the Berlin airlift to the Berlin wall, this episodes covers Germany’s capital (and the capital of spies) from wall to wall.
This is our 200th episode. Of course we wanted to do something special. George R. R. Martin asked us if he could guest host, but we were too busy, so we settled on doing the Red Wedding. We hope that’s ok.
Everyone and their mother knows Dungeons&Dragons, at least in concept. But few people know the most important German roleplaying game, “The Dark Eye.” With professor Adrian Daub of Stanford, I talk about this game that’s near and dear to my heart - and maybe yours too, soon.
BLAH 199 | A Tale of Two Germanies - Establishment, with Jim McGeehin
We’re back again! With Jim McGeehin, I talk about the founding of not one but two German states. We’ll have a look at why we’re creating two states instead of one and how these two shape out. You might want to reference the following two diagrams, but it’s not essential. We keep it light on the legalese.
After 11 months, we’re back talking the history of the divided Germany! After looking at western Germany last time around, this time, we’re taking the deep dive into East Germany 1946 to 1948 and ask ourselves how to succesfully build socialism in Germany.
The season finale is here! Sean and I have a slightly different view about it, but as is our wont, we agree on a lot, and the show stays superb even though Sean left a bit disappointed.
There’s a lot of dragons this episode, and we’re comparing the show to Better Call Saul, The Americans and Halt and Catch Fire, because that makes a lot of sense - as you’ll learn listening!
Three days, and there’s good news (even earlier if you’re a Patreon!): HotD is STILL one of the best things on TV right now. This episode, characters, actors and dialogue writing are front and center, and the scenes are so damn good we cannot shut up about if for an hour.
“House of the Dragon” continues to be excellent in this laid-back but still incredibly rich and textured episode. We discuss shot compositions, nightmares, thin places and politics, all in one podcast!
The dragons danced and died, but Stefan skipped town. Yet Sean is not flying solo! Friend of the show Gretchen Felker-Martin, the acclaimed horror novelist behind Manhunt and Cuckoo, joins the Illustrious Co-host for a conversation about the most spectacular, violent, important episode of House of the Dragon yet. Join the ol’ Cut to Black team as they discuss this fantasy landmark!
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This may just be the best episode of a great show yet. Sean and I discuss why in exhaustive and euphoric detail. Also, more detail than you wanted about full-frontal blowjobs, but the show started it.
Now we’re in episode 2. Who won? Ser Arryk or Ser Erryk? We’re not confused. Because we care about themes.
We finally did it and continue the “Best of ASOIAF” series. It’s a crowd pleaser, Daenerys’ “Dracarys” moment, which also marked a turning point for Emilia Clarke in the series. But we are digging deeper: why is it such a crowd pleaser, and what does it mean? What does it portend for Dany? Follow us into the deep dive and fry some slavers.
You didn’t think we’d miss this, right? Weekly episodes, from now on, on the regular channel! Listen to us how we discuss the most important thing in season 2: the new title sequence. And some other stuff, like child murder.
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Our iTunes page.
Previous episodes.
Podcast RSS feed.
Stefan on Twitter.
Stefan’s blog.
Sean on Twitter.
In a special, political episode, I talk with political operative Frank Spring about the upcoming presidential elections. If you don’t want politics from me, stay away from this episode :) You have been warned.
Download the episode!
Torrent
Our iTunes page.
Previous episodes.
Podcast RSS feed.
Stefan on Twitter. Stefan on Bluesky. Stefan’s blog.
Sean has written a list of the top ten TV shows of 2023 (https://decider.com/2023/12/29/sean-t-collinss-top-10-tv-shows-of-2023/), and we’re here to talk about it. Take it as your to-do-list, nod along or vehemently disagree!
Download the episode!
Torrent
Our iTunes page.
Previous episodes.
Podcast RSS feed.
Stefan on Twitter.
Stefan’s blog.
Sean on Twitter.
Oppenheimer has been released on BlueRay. Having missed it in cinema and after covering Barbie with Sean, I’ll now took BLAH veteran and nuclear deterrence expert Tim Westmyer to debate why Oppenheimer is such a good movie, to clear up some of the technical questions and to have a deeper look at the genesis of nuclear weapons as portrayed by Christopher Nolan.
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